Hi, Wednesday, January 1, 2003, 7:27:50 AM, you wrote:
> Fine. You think there are rules of composition? Okay, tell me what they are. > List them. I'd like to know what they are. Disingenuous indeed. You might just as well ask somebody to list the laws of science in an email. Some books which are useful as introductions to the principles of 2-dimensional design and visual literacy, and which I can personally vouch for, are: Mary Acton "Learning to Look at Paintings" 0-415-14890-1 Arthur Asa Berger "Seeing is believing - an introduction to visual communication" 1-55934-909-3 John Bowers "Introduction to Two-Dimensional Design: Understanding Form and Function" 0-471-29224-9 Donis A. Dondis (!) "A Primer of Visual Literacy" 0-262-54029-0 Michael Freeman "The Image" 0-00-412248-8 Harald Mante "Photo Design. Picture Composition for Black & White Photography" 1971, Focal Press (no ISBN) Susan Woodford "Looking at Pictures" 0-521-28647-6 No doubt other people have their own favourites. Some of Cartier-Bresson's published thoughts about composition are included in "The Mind's Eye" 0-89381-875-5. I have a very nice little cheap book which I picked up recently called "Sacred Geometry" by Miranda Lundy (1-904253-04-6) which shows some playful designs derived from elementary geometry. In the book "Numbers the universal language" by Dennis Guedj (0 500 30080 1) there is an interesting example of golden number composition, which shows the geometry underlying Rogier van der Weyden's altarpiece of c. 1435 "The Descent from the Cross". This book is in the excellent little series called New Horizons published by Thames and Hudson. There's useful information about perspective in Philip Steadman's interesting book "Vermeer's Camera" (0-19-280302-6). And of course a lot of other useful information out there for people who want to make the effort, including books about individual artists and their technique which look more closely at practical applications of the principles of composition. --- Bob
